


Death and the Healer

by Owlily



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1520s Germany setting although there are some blatant anachronisms, F/M, Illustrated, and I’m not kidding you it is seriously very very Disney, and the place doesn’t exist either, if you have questions the answer is aesthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 22:24:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15034601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlily/pseuds/Owlily
Summary: Darius could be an average person like you and me, if only he wasn’t the foster son and apprentice of Death. Which could be all fun and games if he wasn’t also terribly prone to hubris.AKA my take on Grimm’s fairytale Godfather Death but in maximum 90s Disney style. Originally started in 2013, heavily revised in 2015, but only posted in its latest revision state now to save it from oblivion while I clean up some of my internet presences.





	1. Dramatis Personae

**Author's Note:**

> I used to write until a few years ago, although this one story was the only thing (mostly because it’s so short) out of many WIPs that I ever “finished”. I got the first ideas in 2008, wrote it in 2013, revised it heavily two years after, and, in an attempt to clean up my homepage where I stored this before, decided to post it on AO3 now to save it from dooming oblivion.
> 
> It was originally written in German and translated and beta’d by myself, so please excuse my subpar mastery of the English language, and the numerous typos and formatting errors that without a doubt still remain. But once I had decided to upload this thing, I figured I could at least make it accessible to everyone (=English). Also, formatting stinks.
> 
> The illustrations date back to 2015/2016, but I never really shared them in my online galeries until recently, and cel shading usually ages quite well, so I hope some people will enjoy my little thing even though it has collected some dust! The illustrations were supposed to go with scenes when the songs would be in a real Disney movie, so that probably explains a lot about them.  
> I may not write anymore (and being very much aware that if I were to write it now, I’d do quite a lot of things differently), but the Death family is still very dear to my heart, and I still love the aesthetics that I used in this story and its illustrations. So I’d still love to hear any questions or comments that you people have!
> 
> Chapter 1 isn’t actually chapter 1 but a dramatis personae to give you a better idea what you’re in for, but you can skip that if you’re not interested.

****

 

**Dramatis Personae:**

  
**Darius**  
Could be a completely normal person like you and me, if only he wasn’t the foster son and apprentice of Death. Maybe that’s an explanation for his quite morbid sense of humour.  
  
**Death**  
The Grim Reaper, Angel of Death, The Hooded One, you name it. Er, him.  
  
**Caladrius**  
A mysterious bird. He saves those who are mortally sick. Sometimes.  
  
**Nekyia and Ulula**  
Tawny owls and harbingers of death. Ulula, as a tendency, is a quite dramatic one. Nekyia, as a tendency, is a rather sleepy one.  
  
**The King**  
A completely normal person. He reigns over a kingdom named Crest, located somewhere in the middle of nowhere.  
  
**Adrette**  
The king’s only daughter and therefore likewise a completely normal person. She is very sickly, though.  
  
**Fama**  
Pretends to be a completely normal person, who likes to chatter. She spreads rumour for fun.  
  
**Aeolus**  
Might actually be a completely normal person. Fama’s constant companion, and underworked herald.


	2. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of a good and organic relationship

This had never happened to Death. He had not expected it to happen. Yet it had happened. He felt sympathy for a suckling, cast away in a tiny basket, to float on a river towards an inglorious end, and to cry in vain.

Death took a look at the child’s hourglass. The pedestal was made of walnut wood, robust and unblemished. There was plenty of sand in the upper glass, enough to run into the lower one for years. It was running slowly, grain by grain. The smoothly polished glass reflected the last rays of that day’s sun. The only embellishment was a relief of a feather on the lower glass, and the light was breaking on its edges.

Frogs were croaking in the reed bed and the stars were rising in the sky when Death nodded to himself. This child was not meant to die as a suckling. But what was it supposed to do without its mother, crying and floating on the river? If it was not meant to die, somebody would have to care for it.

Truly, this had never happened to Death. He lifted the child out of the basket where it was tangled in blades of reed, and out of rough woolen blankets, to wrap it in his own cloak made of shadows. The child ceased crying and looked up at him with big blue eyes, blue eyes that were to turn a warm brown in later years.

“It seems I have a new task.”, Death murmured. “I will raise you, child. You may be my assistant and apprentice, and learn the art of healing. You are lucky to have Death for your godfather, for only before me all people are equal. Would you like to have Death for your godfather? I mean, if you had any choice in the matter.”

The child discovered that it had fingers and started to play mindlessly with them. Death ignored being ignored. “I see all human children have names. Maybe I should give you a name. What do you think of Darius?” And that settled it.


	3. Crest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The little baby grows up and now he’s up for trouble

_Seventeen years later_  
  
Darius walked past meadows, allowing the whistling wind and the rattling spikes of grass to give his hiking songs a melody as he walked past some farmers. They commented on his appearance once he had walked far away enough for their liking.

“Have you seen that chinless wonder? Black gown, like raven feathers.”

“Has the plague returned?”

“Don’t you conjure ghosts!”

“Odd boy…”

Said odd boy was smiling and whistling on his way. The day when Darius arrived at the court of the tiny kingdom of Crest was too dreamingly beautiful and quiet to stay like that. The sun was warming the earth, a soft summer breeze was blowing, and birds were tweeting in the trees. Crest was a country whose people’s biggest problem was vermin, to be fought with sea onions hanging above the doors. A country waiting day by day for something to happen. Crest was a kingdom without trouble, but full of sunny and eventless days, on which the sound of distant lutes and the wind quietly crept through the walls. The melodies in Crest were beautiful, but ever the same, and the instruments were old. The castle was small, but well-fortified, its windows could be shut tight, and they shaped the castle’s exterior with red and white triangular paint, and God knows how old it was. Ivy climbed its bright bricks in assorted spots. Over the past years, the castle had been provided with comfortable fireplaces and their chimneys stood on the slopes of the roof. It had also been provided with a tower, much higher than the other walls, and it granted a wonderful view. From up high, you could see the inner ward and the timbered houses of the merchants and craftsmen. The inner ward was not particularly exciting, that was all. It was the perfect place for Darius to mess up.

–––

  
The sound of people gathering and murmuring in the distance reached the windows of the castle and  drew princess Adrette away from the bed of her sick father. “I’ll be back in a second.” She whispered to his hand between her fingers, even though he did not hear a sound.

Having made her way through the castle hallways and having reached the courtyard, she met a flock of people who had gathered around a young man with untidy, dirty blonde curls that were tucked under a hat with a white feather on its brim. Adrette knew neither his face nor voice, which meant he was a stranger. She knew the people around the castle like the contents of her bedside locker. Which was not particularly difficult, since Crest was more of an surprisingly beautiful fortification with a village as its courtyard than anything else.

“So, you claim to be a physician?“ someone asked the stranger.

“Is that a heron’s feather?” was a farmer’s guess, which he made before the first question had even been answered. “No, that would not be as white as this one. Surely it’s a swan’s feather, isn’t it?”

“It’s a Caladrius feather.” the stranger corrected him. “You know, the bird that heals…”

“He must be a charlatan.” murmured someone in the crowd. “All the quacks from university are charlatans.”

“I am not from any university, and I am a better healer than any physician or any surgeon in all of Europe.” the stranger declared. His smile was so broad that it was contagious. His critic felt himself raising his mouth without meaning to.

“So you’re a pompous barber, that is even worse.” barked an old woman with more hood than hair on her head, and who was less easy to impress.

“Where have you learned something like that?” someone else wanted to know.  
The old woman wrinkled her nose. “Surely he learned from a wicked witch with flaming red hair and warts on her nose, and he has certainly sold his soul, as well.” she mumbled.

Adrette forced her way through them and asked for an explanation who or what was the reason for the noise in her courtyard. The reason introduced himself by taking off his hat and making a bow before her. “I take it from your pearl-adorned dress and the power of your voice, which silenced these people, that you are the lady of this castle.” he greeted her. “At your service, princess.”

Adrette first looked into his eyes, then at his hat, at his clothes, and back. She hesitated. “You are a physician?”

“What do I look like?” the stranger asked and pointed to his clothes. He was wearing long robes made of black leather with numerous tiny pockets, out of which gleamed instruments that looked absurd to her, like glasses, scissors and knives.

“I’m a healer. I travel the world to help people. Healers are needed everywhere. Even in Crest.”

“We need a real healer. No mindless sons of craftsmen with blunt saws, physicians with their head in the clouds, lest street rats who carry foul air from town to town.”

“Luckily, I’m neither of these things.” he promised with a grin and rubbed his hands. “You haven’t seen nothing yet! I’m proficient in the secret art of healing those sick to death, provided the grim reaper has not yet claimed their souls. Let me show you.”

Adrette frowned and played with her fingers, but did not hold him back. She shrugged and said with a sigh: “Fine. Show us.” She did not stop playing with her fingers, though.

He asked for a chicken, which fluttered nervously, and for a kitchen knife. He cut the chicken’s throat for everyone to see, including for Adrette to see, who hid her face behind her hands and shrieked. Afterwards, he pulled a box filled with ointment made of houseleek from one of his pockets and rubbed it on the chicken’s wound, which healed in a heartbeat. The chicken looked around with a confused look in its eyes, then wobbled away, unharmed and clucking.

“Ah!”

“Oh!”  
  
Adrettes mouth kept standing open and her heart trembled. “I would like to speak to you in private.” she said and knitted her hands. “What do I call you?”

“Darius. Call me Darius.”

–––

  
Adrette led him to a room where the windows were shut and hung with thick red curtains. The air was heavy and the lack of light made the room feel even colder than it actually was. Darius took a deep breath before he entered.

“My father is very ill.” Adrette explained in a low voice. “All the physicians and surgeons we have consulted so far have been unable to help him. No bloodletting, no herbs and roots, no hot bandages have been an improvement, lest prayers and wishful thinking. We do not even know what  he is suffering from.”

“I can tell you that much without even looking at the king: from lack of fresh air.” Darius mused and had a look around in the room. Too many candles were burning for such a small room, and more curtains were hanging around the bed.

“But it is cozy and quiet.” Adrette said in confusion.

“And dark and damp.” Darius objected and approached the bed. He removed the curtains and asked Adrette for a candle. The golden glow of the candle shed light on drops of sweat on the king’s brow. He was so chubby that the wrinkles in his face circled around a red bulb of a nose and fat cheeks, which looked like the cheeks of an ox in this condition. His big round belly was inflating and falling with his heavy, irregular breathing, and his flowing grey beard was covered in sweat.

“Whenever he is awake, he complains about pain in his joints, so he sleeps for hours.” Adrette said. “Uneasily so, though, and he is aching and moving in his sleep, and thirsty like a pig when he is awake.” She paused and took a breath so deep it made her cough. “Is he to die?” The sounds crept slowly and cautiously from her throat, like a mouse unsure whether it would be a good idea to leave its cave.

Darius did not reply at once but looked at the window, although there was nothing to see. “I do not think so. He is suffering from a fever, a grave, dangerous fever, yet I have seen worse.” he declared at last. For the first time, his eyes met hers. Adrette’s eyes were of a watery blue and even looked as troubled as the sea. Darius realized with a smile how much she must love her father to care about him that much.

“Let’s first open the windows and make a drink of herbs.” He showcased a bundle from one of his pockets. “With these herbs.”

Adrette rewarded him with a shy smile and hid her hands between the drapes of her dress, folded as if in a prayer. “What can I do?”

Darius opened up the windows before he answered. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The red curtains moved gently in the wind. Then he handed Adrette the herbs. “Have a spoon of these poured over with boiling water and wait a little while. Then bring me the cup. And bring back the remaining herbs. Oh, and wash your hands. Don’t touch your own nose, mouth or eyes, if you don’t happen to have just washed your fingers, understood?”

“No.” Adrette said truthfully. Darius shrugged. He did not expect otherwise. Nobody ever understood why they should wash their hands after taking care of the sick.

“Will my father not suffer from cold?” asked Adrette with a critical look at the wind brushing through the curtains.

“No. For once, the fever is keeping him warmer than he needs to be, and he has two thick sheets, which we will, by the way, exchange and wash, and he needs fresh air. Oh, and if the windows are closed, Caladrius cannot come in.”

Adrette cocked her head with a blank look on her face, but she obeyed and left the room with the herbs. Meanwhile, Darius leaned out of the window, took the white feather from his hat and pointed it towards the sun. Shortly after, a clarion call was to be heard from the sky and a tiny speck appeared there. As it came closer, it turned out to be a bird, white as snow, and it seemed to be almost translucent in the sunlight. It landed on the window, which was too small for it to stand up tall. The bird allowed Darius to stroke the feathers on its head.

“Nice to see you, big one.” Darius whispered between its feathers and helped it slip through the far too small window. The bird filled the room with light. The straw and cobbles at its feet were glowing faintly and the candlelight faded.

As Adrette returned with the tea, she almost dropped the cup. She managed to hand it over to her wet nurse, but only while staring at Darius at the bird in awe. The wet nurse was breathing so hard that her exuberant chest was shaking and the colour was fading from her cheeks. Before either of them had the chance to find words, Darius took the tea and expressed his gratitude with such politeness and high spirits that they dared not tell him off.

“May I introduce, princess? This is Caladrius. My partner, in a way. It can heal every person whose soul death has not yet taken. Fresh air and the tea will take care of the rest.”

As if called for, Caladrius approached the bed with slow steps, flew up, and bent down to look at the sick king. Adrette watched with fascination as the bed was illuminated by its light and the blood red tapestries turned the red of a sunrise. The bird sank into the cushions only very little, as if it did not weigh more than one its feathers. It touched the king’s brow with its beak and then departed as solemnly as it had arrived. It slipped through the window and flew away. It became one with the sun far away, yet its light remained in the room. The air tasted fresher and did not feel as heavy on one’s lungs as before.

Adrette and her wet nurse followed the bird with their eyes until Darius demanded their attention by clapping his hands. “It was his pleasure to meet you, too.” he said with a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No chickens were harmed in the making of this chapter. No animals are ever harmed in my creations. At least not permanently.


	4. Fame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darius gets to know the princess, and Lady Fame. He’s not too fond of the latter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love everyone who can place the passages on Fame from Ovid and Vergil, I love everyone who has read Chaucer’s House of Fame even more

A winged creature crouched down atop of Crest’s highest tower and had a look over the tiny castle. There was rarely anything to see – most of the time, graveyards were more exciting than Crest. Precisely because of that, it was hard to miss Darius and the Caladrius. The creature perked up its many ears, which were peeping through gold-red locks of hair, and clawed the clay of the tower’s ledge. High hopes made its body tense.

It was no bird. It had the body of an eagle with big, strong wings, but no bird had a female, human head with waves of human hair, and no eagle had eyes on the tips of its tail feathers like a peacock. These eyes searched every corner of the sky at once for movements, like the third eye on the creature’s forehead. Its numerous ear cups took in every sound within a couple of miles, all the news and all the rumours among people, and its tongues spread them louder than they had been before, like a beryl breaks incoming light. “Aeolus! Aeolus!”, it cried. “Aeolus, hurry up!”

Shortly after, a man trod into a room in the tower, hardly below the roof, and leaned out of the window. The velvet overcoat on his square chest and the beret on his likewise square head made his tall form appear like a nobleman’s, but his eyes looked as if lost in dreams and thought, and the warm evening breeze ruffled his hair, which looked a little undignified. Aeolus was a herald at court, but everyday life in Crest lacked events, so he was unemployed most of the time and wandered like leaves before the wind.

“I have good news!” the creature greeted him. “I bring tidings for you to spread in Crest.”

Aeolus’ eyes grew bigger. He had ready an elegantly carved seashell trumpet and presented it to the bird-lady. She looked at the shell with pleasure, iridescent in the golden light of the setting sun.

“I like spreading rumours in Crest.” Aeolus said. His voice was deep and warm. “The people here believe everything coming from strangers, of wizards and dragon-slayers. I blow into the shell once, they sing entire songs about it.”

“They do not have to make up much this time.” the bird-lady promised. “Death’s godchild is here. I’d like to play with him a bit. And if the game turns out to be fun, I will grant him fame and glory.”

Her gnarled claws tipped to and fro on the tiles of the roof before she set off and flew to the tower window to tuck her head into it. Three tongues at once slipped through her lips and whispered of truths and half-truths about the young man who had come to Crest. “What are you waiting for? Let the trumpet sound!” she told Aeolus and flew away, beating her wings with so much force that Aeolus’ coat floated in the wind.

Aeolus took his seashell trumpet and started to blow and puff, to the East, to the West and to the South, to the North, louder than cracking thunder, so that the tunes echoed in the farthest ends of the Earth.

–––

  
Crest was not as big or powerful as many another place that Darius had visited, but he enjoyed life at court. The castle was a few hundred years old, but the king’s residence was still picturesque, and the kingdom seemed to bloom without end. So he lodged in Crest as if it was his home. He was not ashamed to showcase his arts as if he was a street performer – the trick with the revival of the chicken worked at every court, although he had to admit defeat when he was asked to revive a soup hen. He claimed it made him sad to see beheaded and plucked chickens trying to take flight. He had seen it once, and soup hens come back to live were no pretty sight. Everybody laughed at that, except Adrette, who firmly stated that she was merely keeping an eye on what he did. But she followed every single of his steps, if she was not occupied with tending to her sick father. He was amused that her curiosity drew her close to him again and again, even though she did not admit that. Adrette was adorable when she wasn’t nagging, with a handful of freckles on her nose, and big, blue eyes, which were alight with anticipation and surprise all the time, so Darius didn’t exactly mind her presence, either.

After two weeks, the king’s condition was so much better that he could get out of bed again and was feeling hungry, although he was still pale – except his nose, which was red as an apple. To celebrate the day at which a capable healer had come to Crest, the king bade a soup of apples and almond pudding to be made, with a freshly chopped suckling pig and with krapfen, and Darius was to sit right next to him at the high table. He had not eaten that well for months and did not conceal it. For someone who resembled a scarecrow in stature, he showcased a healthy appetite. So it had been a good idea to cross Crest on his wanderings, after all – he had almost passed by, thinking such a tiny kingdom could hardly have enough of an audience for him. But the food was good and abundant, the wine fruity and the tapestries with the golden threats were a sure sign of good taste and prosperity.

“Tell us how you learned the art of healing.” begged the king.

“Connections, your highness.” Darius said. “As always.” He tipped on the Caladrius feather on his head as he said that. From the corner of his eye he saw that Adrette followed the feather’s movements first with her eyes and then touched it ever so lightly with the tip of her finger. Darius pretended not to be aware of her curiosity, but the light in her eyes made him happier than the last remnants of cheese and fruit pie that he scraped from his plate. Bliss had made his cheeks red and inflated his belly to double the size it usually had (which still wasn’t much).

“How very charming.” a voice approached him from behind, which sounded as if it was made of butter and marzipan. When Darius turned around, he saw a woman with a nose like a hook and a velvet robe adorned with peacock feathers. There were peacock feathers even in front of her ears, tucked into her hair. She was a bit taller than Darius, and her big, ocean green hat made her look like the mate of a giant.

“And you would be?” he inquired.

“I am eyes and ears. I see everything, I hear everything, I tell everything. If you want a name, call me Fama.”

“I have not seen you at court since the priest was said to have had that scandalous affair with a young maiden.” Adrette interrupted her.

Fama winked at her knowingly. “Princess, you have no idea how many new tales are approaching Crest. It is not as boring around here as you think.”

“And yet you bother with a wanderer like me?” Darius interrupted and pretended not to care for attention.

“But of course. I have already asked my herald to tell all the neighbouring kingdoms of your supernatural arts.”

Everything else, she told him under her breath. “Everybody can make tea, but the power over life and death, the ability to speak with the Caladrius, that is beyond the common crowd, isn’t it? Oh, I understand you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s rude to whisper.”, Adrette complained. “Get lost.”

“As you wish.”, Fama said with a sweet smile.

Adrette kept staring at her until the tip of her dress had vanished behind a corner of the castle. Darius decided to break the embarrassing silence.

“Who is she?” he asked, and actually wanted to know.

“Fama? Only a noblewoman. My father is fond of her because he thinks her tales are funny, but I do not like her. I believe she is making everything up, and many of her tales are mean and humiliating. Sometimes she tells nice tales to be proud of, but there is no pattern behind whom she glorifies and whom she degrades. I would probably like her better if she told only nice tales of heroes and magicians, but I fall for her every time. She seems to enjoy that tremendously. Luckily, she is rarely seen in Crest.“

As she was saying that, Adrette knitted her dress of sky-blue silk and refused to meet his eyes, so he tipped her shoulder lightly to get her attention. Before Adrette had a chance to complain, he waved at her to follow him.  


Darius let his audience know that he had told enough of reviving beheaded chickens for today and accompanied the princess on her way to her room in one of the towers of the castle. “You’re afraid of death?” Adrette neither confirmed nor denied that, so he asked again. “Why?”

Adrette took a deep breath and sat down in an armed chair. “I am not good at explaining.” she said. “May I sing?”

A smile crossed Darius’ lips. His eyes searched the room and found a lute. “Hand me the lute, please.” he asked her. Adrette handed it to him without question. Darius plucked some chords and nodded. A warm, rich sound. Totally off-tune, but it would do. “Sing and I will make up something on the way.” he said and nodded to her. Adrette then sang her song:  
  
_There is a reaper, calléd death,_  
_given might by our lord._  
_Now sharpening his blade,_  
_much better it’s made,_  
_soon he will cut down,_  
_bringin’ sorrow to our town._  
_Take heed, flower sweet!_  
  
_He’s cutting down what’s crisp and green,_  
_it’s nowhere to be seen:_  
_the noble daffodil,_  
_the primula downhill,_  
_the fair hyacinth,_  
_the vines from corinth._  
_Take heed, flower sweet!_  
  
_Many a thousand innumerable_  
_by the sickle brought to fall:_  
_red roses, white lilies,_  
_weeded in the alleys;_  
_you Kaiser’s crown,_  
_he won’t spare your fair gown._  
_Take heed, flower sweet!_  
  
_Are are equal before him,_  
_alike cuts weed and trim;_  
_the larkspur so proud,_  
_field blossoms, in a crowd_  
_they are lying aside,_  
_unknown far or wide._  
_Take heed, flower sweet!_  
  
_Fie death! come here, I have no fear,_  
_fie! come, and cut me here;_  
_If he comes to hurt me,_  
_In a garden I will be,_  
_awaiting my fate,_  
_beyond heaven’s gate._  
_Rejoice, flower sweet!_

  
  
Adrette ended with a sigh. “My mother wrote that song for me, so I would not be afraid of death anymore.”

“So you should not be.”

“That is easy for you to say. It is a sad song.”

“That’s a matter of perspective, princess. I think it’s meant to tell us to enjoy life as long as it lasts.”

“You do not understand. My mother died when I was still a child.”

“In a hundred years or so, the song will be popular in all the land for precisely that reason. Imagine how well it would fit a war or another outbreak of the plague… Now that we’re at it, would you allow me to take notes for the lute? I like what I did.”

“You mean, what _we_ did.”

He did not have to justify what he had said because Adrette cried loud and shrill, which almost made her fall from the chair. “There is a harbinger of death on your shoulder!” she pressed from her throat and pointed at his shoulder with a trembling hand. The sound was so high-pitched and breathy that it resembled a bat more than Adrette’s speaking voice.

Darius took a look at his shoulder and smiled. On his shoulder sat a ball of light-brown fluff and cooed like a pigeon. “Hello, Nekyia.” he greeted it and placed the ball of feathers carefully on the palms of his hands, where it turned out to be a tawny owl. A sleepy tawny owl. “I would rather call Nekyia a harbinger of ‘time for a nap’ than a harbinger of death. You’re more scared than I thought. We have to do something about that.”

“But they make people die.” said Adrette. Her eyes flurried to and fro between Darius and the owl. Nekyia hooted with a certain indignation and would have raised an eyebrow if she had had any, but did not further mind the comment. “What is an owl doing in the castle?”

“That’s an excellent question.” Darius murmured. “Please excuse me for a moment, princess.”

She did, partly for not having to touch the owl, and did not ask where he was heading to, but her eyes followed him with a puzzled look on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adrette’s song is an anonymous German folk song from the 17th century, known as “Es ist ein Schnitter, der heißt Tod”, or simply “Das Schnitterlied”. The subpar English translation is my own. I was very close to actually placing the story at that time to fit the song, and also because it was fittingly both high plague time AND of course the Thiry Years’ War, hence the song being composed in the first place. It was also the time when the iconic plague doctor look that I made Darius wear was actually in use. He has a mask, too, it’s just that for some reason he never ended up wearing it in the story…
> 
> If you’re wondering why I didn’t place the story in 17th century then, I see your point. The answer is that I really, really wanted to put the ladies into 1520s gowns. Yes. That is the sole reason. Go sue me. I still ended up using 1600s fashion in some other project of mine that has nothing to do with Death & the Healer, though. It has pirates. I don’t know whether that will ever see the light of day, however…


	5. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darius no

As night was drawing near, Darius took refuge in the darkest and tiniest corner he could find in the basement of the castle’s highest tower. It was cold, uninviting, and the bluish moonlight falling through tiny, high windows was eerie enough to make him want to run back up the stairs, but he had to be alone. The run-down old building was hardly used by anyone or anything except mould.

“Why are you here?” he asked Nekyia. It sounded like a reproach.  
  
Nekyia was not impressed. She was fully awake by now and did not blink that often anymore. She looked at him with big, shining eyes. _Hoo-hoot_ , she said and beamed with pride.

“Maybe for your standards you have been fast this time, but other owls deliver news of impending death within a week.” Darius said and shook his head. “Say it then. Who’s going to die?”

_Hoooo-hoo_ , Nekyia said.

Darius looked startled. “The princess?” he repeated thrice as loud. The question echoed among the wet walls of the basement and was lost between cold droplets of water. “But she is so young! And ever since her father is well again and she finally stops being a moaning minnie, she is almost likeable… and she doesn’t seem to be sick! I mean, not _that_ sick.“

Nekyia’s head sank deep into the feathers around her neck. She made a quiet, high-pitched _hoo_.

“Nonsense, she is always that pale. She is also always that thin. This must be a mistake. I will ask him myself.”

Once he was sure that absolutely nobody was in the basement who could watch him, he on placed a provisional woolen blanket on the floor and sat down cross-legged. He was cold nonetheless, but he ground his teeth, rubbed his hands together and whispered to the shadows. Even the darkness between the cracks of the stones seemed to sing about the cold in low voices. Nekyia tucked herself into his lap, fluffed up her feathers and dozed away cooing.

“Master, are you here?” Darius asked carefully. The shadows swelled from the corners of the cellar like heavy mist and thickened to a cloud of pure black. Bit by bit the dark, wavy pulp took shape. It was the shape of a pitch-black frock, and it was leaning on a reaper’s scythe, which looked like it was made of a heron’s skull and bones. Where a human being would have had a face, the frock displayed a black hole beneath a hood of darkness. Darius fondly thought of it as black on black.

“I am always here.” the shadows answered him.

“Master, did you send Nekyia to announce the death of the princess?”

“That is correct.”

No further comment. Darius gulped. “Is there nothing I can do for her? I know she’s sickly, but she doesn’t seem to be mortally ill.“

“You cannot. You are only my apprentice, Darius. Your herbs are as helpful as dry earth if the last grains of sand are running through your patient’s hourglass.“ His master explained.

“But she is the king’s only daughter.”

Death pulled an hourglass out of the shadows and handed it to Darius. It was small and elongate. The sand had a blue shimmer like snow in moonlight. The pillars were made of cherry wood and chiseled with tiny buds and blooms of edelweiss. Adrette’s hourglass. And most of the sand had run through the glass already. The sand grinding down sounded like a requiem. After two, maybe three days the last grains would run through into the lower glass.

Darius hated what he saw. “But not yet! Please, master, I want to save her.”

Death seemed to be taken at surprise. “You cannot save her, no matter how dearly people believe you were a sagacious healer. Tomorrow evening I will take her with me. She will die a gentle death. In comparison. Simply sleep away.“

“In comparison? Master, I beg you, she cannot die yet!“

“Darius, do you remember the conditions under which I granted you the power to heal every sickness and every wound in this world?”

“…I can only heal the wounds of those whose injuries are not fatal. I cannot heal people whose hourglass is almost empty and whom you take with you to die. If the Caladrius turns away upon my call, the people have to die. If Nekyia or one of her sisters announces the death of a person, it will come to pass.”

“Correct. The princess’ hourglass is almost empty.”

To demonstrate, Death took another hourglass from his frazzled, deep blue frock. It was a beautiful hourglass, crystal clear and shimmering with all the colours of the rainbow even in the dim moonlight that hit the basement, and the pillars were made of heavy, dark marble, chiselled with strands of gold. Fine grains of sand tumbled from the upper glass into the lower one. A fair amount of grains had already run down and formed a big heap, whose top was glittering and flashing in the pale moonlight, but the remaining grains were running slowly. The king’s hourglass. Recently saved from death by sickness.

“This is the hourglass of a person who is well – once more. The princess, however, will fall sick.”

Darius would have liked to meet Death’s eyes. One should meet the other’s eye when there was something serious to discuss. The black on black thing that Death had going on whenever he wandered among mortals was unique, but it had it drawbacks.

“Master, can’t we make an exception? She is so young.” he begged.

Death loosened a single, wordless cry, which sounded like a crossbreed of a hissing snake, a screeching owl, and a cat whose tail had been hit. His frock lost its shape and turned into wavy shadows once more, which trembled with agitation. All colour left Darius’ face and he pressed his lips together with noticing.

“Just like you. You are in no position to question me. No more on this.” Death grumbled and calmed down again. He tucked the hourglasses into his frock, so that they seemed to be swallowed by a cloud of black, and he vanished in dark blue fume. The requiem of the grains of sand faded with him, and so did the laments of the shadows. All that remained were dripping droplets of water. Darius remained sit in the basement with open mouth and a heavy load on his heart. His bit his lips and made a decision.

–––

  
In the same night, Darius sneaked into the masonry of his master in the realm of the dead. Rows of walls, shelves and furniture made of shadows. Pillars and stones of black and grey, like a night-sky without stars, like holes without a rim. Death had often taken him there to teach him that everybody’s lifespan could be measured by his or her hourglass. Darius’ task was to keep the hourglasses in shape, so they would not be buried below piles of dust. There were thousands and thousands of shelves, with the people’s hourglasses carefully arranged on them, but Darius was too much of a thinker to panic because of that. Patiently he went through all the rows of shelves. No hourglass like another one. The sand within them was sometimes fine, sometimes chunky like pebbles, sometimes white like chalk, sometimes brownish and smelled like soil in the woods, sometimes blackish like fine ground cowl. The flasks were sometimes muddy, sometimes clear like crystal, sometimes polished, sometimes longish, sometimes bulky, the pillars sometimes simple and chunky, sometimes richly embellished and turned into creative shapes, and they emerged from the darkness in the room with all their different colours, so that Darius did not know in each case what substance they were made of. Ivy wound its way between the hourglasses up to the tops of the shelves where it vanished on the ceiling in a cloud of black. Polished skulls of various sorts of animals were arranged next to some of the hourglasses und turned the masonry into a cabinet of living and dead creatures of all kind.

Nekyia sat on his right shoulder and made an almost silent _hoo_. “What I’m doing here? I’m saving a life, sleepyhead.” Darius replied. That was enough to make Nekyia fluff up her feathers and sink into a blissful doze on his shoulder.

At least Darius remembered well what the princess’ hourglass looked like. Pillars of cherry wood, embellished with edelweiss patters. After what seemed to be an eternity he found the hourglass. There was only a tiny heap of sand left in the upper flask, and the grains were running so fast that his heart started racing at the same pace. Darius took a deep breath, reached for the hourglass and carefully turned it upside down. He watched as the sand slipped back into the upper flask in thick, glittering streams. He waited for some moments full of gulping until a fair amount of sand had run down. That should be some years. He thought about it for a moment and let it run a little further. A few years more would hardly do any harm.

When he was done, Darius turned the hourglass upside down again and placed it back where it belonged on the shelf. He wanted to leave the shadowy masonry when a shrill cry troubled his thoughts. He almost tumbled over a row of hourglasses on the shelf and he was already making up flimsy excuses as to why he had been searching the shelves when he realised that his master wasn’t there. A tawny owl was flapping wildly in the air in front of his eyes. He sighed with relief.

“Hello, Ulula. Panicking as always. I’ve been wondering how you have not yet died from a heart attack ever since you hatched from your egg and pricked open the shell of your sister because you were scared of a robin chick lost in your nest, and your cries could be heard throughout the woods.”

On his shoulder, Nekyia made a hoo sound. Darius held up his arm so Ulula could sit next to her sister on his other shoulder. She accepted the invitation, but kept looking around like a deer when wolves were on the prowl. Her breath went rapidly.

“Now don’t be afraid. If you don’t tell the master anything, neither will I. And what happens in the realm of the dead stays in the realm of the dead, am I right?” he whispered. Ulula ceased saying _hoooohoothoo_ and calmed down a bit, but she was never as blissfully calm as her sister. Darius let her get off at a free space on a shelf and left the masonry without a sound. He was worried, but he didn’t let it show. His hands suddenly felt light as feathers, as if they had held bricks of lead and not an hourglass. He had never felt such relief when leaving the realm of Death. Or not having met his godfather. Could he be afraid of his master? But he told himself it was only his imagination, and believed it for a little while.

–––

  
However, Darius spent the morning after behind the inn where he stayed and puked his heart out. He had never felt his bad before. What if Death found out that he had fiddling with Adrette’s hourglass? What if somebody found out that he had learned his healing arts from Death, who was probably stinking mad at him? He had been trying to find sleep once his work was done. He had not slept the entire night, after all. But he could find no rest. Now he suddenly felt as if the cobblestones beneath his feet were crumbling. He had tricked his master. He had cheated Death. He had treated the mortal illness of a princess before it had even broken out. The thought of sooner or later meeting his master again, whom he had disobeyed, made his stomach cramp, and the hot morning sun, totally unasked for, made him smell his own intestines. He threw up.

When he turned around and wanted to take a staggering leave, his heart almost stopped beating. Adrette was standing in front of him and looked unpleased. If he had not been pale as the moon to begin with, the sight of her would now have chased away all the blood from his face.

“You look fit as a fiddle.” Darius noticed and could hardly cover his relief.

“Why would I not? You, however, look like a carriage had run over you. Do you need fresh water, maybe?“ Adrette suggested.

Darius nodded in shame. His limbs had never felt so useless, and his eyes were helplessly looking for something else than the sunny, pretty – clean – princess, who stood in her sky-blue dress with the edelweiss patterned borders in front of a wanna-be healer, who was unable to treat his own stomach being upset from stress. They were looking in vain.

Adrette told him to follow her and he obeyed without question. She was surprisingly calm for a vain princess in her ivory tower who was mortally afraid of death. After all, he must have looked like a scarecrow on a dunghill. Darius had almost wished for one to hide in. His blank expression hid how grateful he was for the fresh water and blankets which she brought him, and for accompanying him back to the room he had been provided. He was even more grateful that she did not mention him vomiting with a word. “I am here to apologise.” she said finally.

Darius looked at her in disbelief. “What for?”

“I was being unfriendly. To you and the owl.” Adrette explained briefly. She was almost biting her lips and playing nervously with her hands.

“Her name is Nekyia.” Darius’ face lightened up as if rays of sunlight had hit it, unhoped for. “So you’re not afraid of owls anymore?”

“I have never been afraid of owls. Only of what they herald.”

“Owls are not what they seem. They can move freely between the realms of the living and the dead.” Darius said with a grin. “But you needn’t be afraid of them. I’m glad you realised that.”

“How long have you been acquainted with the bird?”

Darius shrugged. “I was five or six when she hatched.”

Adrette smiled and Darius caught himself at smiling back. He had to shake himself to find his composure again. “Are you still afraid of death?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Now you needn’t be for sure. At least I hope so.”

Adrette did not understand that, but she nodded.


	6. Fama in Drama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darius, I told you no

As a rule, Darius soon forgot his sorrows, and the world kept on turning in Crest. Thus, a wandering guild was permitted to perform a miracle play. In a rush of joy, Adrette had wrapped herself in a royal blue dress of velvet and a headdress with ostrich feathers, and she was whipping to and fro on her chair. Everyone’s eyes were looking at the stage in anticipation, and excitement over the play had been growing day by day until the hour of performance was due.

The audience was spellbound and watching a crusader on the stage, who took his leave to free a princess from the fangs of a hungry dragon. Of course just in tie before it would bury its teeth in her virgin flesh, without any apparent reason why a scrawny princess, protected by bloodthirsty knights, would be a more desirable prey than wild deer in the woods.

When the play was reaching its climax, the crusader plunged the gold-embellished blade of his fake sword in the belly of the dragon. The audience was delighted. There was nothing better than blood and gore. For all of that, it did not matter that the dragon on the stage was merely a puppet, whose scales were tiny green marbles already loosening from the cloth. But that was only to be seen from up close, and from far away, they glittered in the sunlight. A figure in a dark cloak also kept hidden below the stage.

The dragon was now collapsing because of its wound, or rather, the actors fell down and the puppet sank down. But it was a little late for a happy ending, for the knight was severely wounded as well and sank down, leaning on his sword. Before his voice faded, he used his last resorts to send a loud-voiced lament to the skies, bewailing the pain of his wounds caused by the dragon’s venom. His last words were addressed at the princess, who wrapped her arms around him with care and treated his wounds with tears. He took his last breath while the princess held him in her arms and mourned. This princess reached out for the audience in a monologue on the tragedy and cruelty of this world. The sun sank on the horizon.

One or the other person in the audience had tears in their eyes. Nobody dared to interrupt the princess’ lament. Except the figure in the shadows. “Let me take a look at him.” it offered and went through a trap-door to the stage-floor. The stranger was wrapped in a frock of thick black velvet and pulled out a pipe made of a cut branch of linden wood. He showed it to the audience before he handed it over to the princess. The helplessness and confusion of the boy who played that princess were no acting, for the helping healer’s hand was neither part of the ensemble nor was he part of the play.

“Suck out the blood using this pipe.” he instructed the princess, whose gaze wandered between his cloaked face and the pipe in her hands. Only when “she” was still not intending to do as bid, the newcomer took off his dark cloak and revealed Darius’ face. He was wearing black robes with red velvet borders, which looked far too expensive on him, and he enjoyed himself a little too much.

 

“And maybe do it before nightfall, and before the audience loses patience, and you ruin the play.” he winked at the boy actor. Only now the princess finally hastened to help her colleague’s life on stage. The audience was delighted even more. It looked as if the scene had been planned. The king clapped his fleshy hands. However, Adrette beside him grew even paler than usual.

As Darius was drawing his hat and bowed before the audience three times, Fama paved her way through the masses to the stage. She was smiling broadly, but lightning crossed her eyes. “Are you up for a challenge?” she asked with a voice so cold that Darius felt a chill. The people around her had fallen silent and taken several steps away from her.

“My answer is: anytime.” said Darius with a grin on his lips that was far too broad. He would soon regret this answer. Three forked tongues at once spit from Fama’s mouth, two additional pairs of ears popped up between her golden locks, and a third eye appeared on her brow. Her headdress flew away in a swing and let her hair go loose in the wind. She jumped up to the stage like a bird in flight and landed in front of his feet. Darius held back a cry and took a step back from the creature. The audience was so taken aback that they forgot to be delighted.

“Is that scene part of the play?” the king mumbled below his beard. He was, however, so much taken in by the events on stage that he soon forgot having asked a question and did not notice when his daughter did not answer, for she had jumped off her seat and taken away the sword from his side.

“Why are you so scared?“ Fama said with scorn. “You treat the sick and half-dead, but you’re afraid of a woman? Your heart should jump for joy at the sight of a horrible abomination! If the monster isn’t ugly and despicable, the hero wouldn’t seem handsome and shining.”

The potential hero of the stage felt that his not particularly handsome appearance was not what he currently cared about most, anyway, for the creature in front of him was hideous enough in its own right, and it did not need to be compared to beautiful people. But that wasn’t enough to make him regret his boldness.

Fama cried like an eagle, so loud and shrill that Darius had to cover his ears. Her arms turned into wings, her fingers branched into golden-brown feathers and her slender hips thickened into an egale’s body. Her feet hardened and became gnarled talons, her nails claws as sharp as razorblades, at her back spread long, elegant tail feathers. They were as long as a peacock’s and showed the same eye-shaped markings, which were iridescent if the light from the right angle. She bared her snake-like tongues and attacked Darius with a cackle. The beating of her wings cut the air like metal and chased spirits like driving drums.

“I’m unarmed, you cheap harpy rip-off!” he complained, but Fama laughed at that. The sound resembled shattering glass.

The actors, including those who had been hid under the dragon-cloth, had fled to a corner of the stage and watched the scene in silent horror, but as the game proceeded, Fama flew over their heads several times. She made the pillars in the ground shake and their garments float in the wind.

“Leave the stage!” Darius snapped at them, but the only answer were witless looks. The intestines of the dragon, the revived knight and the princess hugged each other tight, their gazes were set on Darius. Who was swept off his feet by a gust of wind caused by Fama’s wings. Before they could ask whether he was alright, he rushed to his feet again.

“Leave the stage, damn it!” he repeated and sounded even less polite than before. This time, the actors obeyed without question. The crowd in front of the stage took that as a sign to give way in panic. Only Aeolus kept his place in front of the stage and watched his mistress, unmoved and attentively.

As Darius looked after the actors, he saw Adrette on the stage. She handed him her father’s sword. “Try this.” she said with a smile.

“I have never wielded such a thing.” Darius murmured, but the took it, anyway.

“There is always a first time.” Adrette said and shrugged.

Darius took for the grip of the sword as tightly as he could manage and stood firmly on his feet. “Fama!” he cried to the skies, where the evening star was raising. “Try once more sweeping me from my feet! And this time, aim for real!”

Fama clicked her tongues and darted towards him like a hawk on a hunt. Continuing to cackle and laugh was a mistake, though, for as soon as she stood in the air before him, Darius wielded the sword and severed one of her forked tongues from her palate, more by chance than aptitude. Her laughter immediately turned into a cry of pain and she lost balance in the air. She flew past him and soared into higher air again. Her eyes flashed with anger.

Which was precisely her problem. She attacked Darius again and made him tumble, but she could not keep her mouth shut. When Darius was lying down, she clawed his hat and face, but she was screaming and crying to give voice to her anger. Darius had trouble to defend himself, but his blade found Fama’s second tongue at last.

This strike made Fama tremble so badly that she soared into the air again, squealing in pain, but she could not control anymore where she was flying. She eventually fell down next to the stage, but came to her feet again quickly. She lost one or the other feather in the process and was staggering and trembling. Only after wavering for a few steps and shaking off the pain, which made golden feathers float around like snowflakes, she regained her balance.

Aeolus, who had been following the fight in silent amazement, ran to her side, but Fama  rolled her eyes and bade him leave. The look she gave Darius could have made babies cry. Blood was in her mouth, and she mumbled because she was almost biting her last remaining tongue. “That was the worst thing you could have done!”

Darius blinked. He felt like a child caught at steeling sweets. “I beat you fair and square!”

“Fair and square you have brought your own downfall.” Fama cackled. The sun was setting and covered her feathers in red-golden light, which came eerily close to the colour of her blood. “You can hurt me but not catch me.” she taunted and took off into the air with a high-pitched cackle. Even when her shape was already vanishing from the horizon, the sound of her cries remained in the ears of the people of Crest. She did not look back for Darius even once.

Darius did not feel like catching her, and he let down the sword. He found himself to be alone on an empty stage. Almost alone. The sun was sinking and made room for the first stars. The crowd exulted and Adrette threw feathers on him like a rain of confetti. And a broad smile. That was enough to make him forget Fama’s words. And to believe it impossible that the sight of Adrette in her royal garments and with one cheeky strand of hair coming out of her headdress to fall on her freckled nose would be the last time he was to see her alive.

–––

  
Any courtyard where Fama felt at home had eyes and ears. The next day, Aeolus had spread her news throughout the kingdom. Darius was the king’s miracle healer. But he had no right to make miracles happen. Sooner or later, something died no matter where, even at the farthest ends of the earth. Even in Crest, although one might think that Death could sometimes forget to collect some of the souls of the dead there. Furthermore, he was oddly fond of the boy, which did not allow him to turn his eyes from the place where he dwelled. Thus, the news that people _stopped_ dying in Crest spread faster than Darius should have liked to. Death had never been so interesting in Fama’s tales before.

Death checked the king’s hourglass. It stood on a heavy block of black marble, but the glass which held the sand was polished until it shone and shimmered like crystal and collected rays of light to send them back into the air in all shining colours. Then he checked the hourglass of the king’s daughter and figured that there should be much less sand left in the upper flask. None at all, to be precise. Anger swelled up below the coldness of his hood. Never before had he felt regret over having saved the child from the reed seventeen years ago, or over having raised it, but there was indeed a first time for everything.

He sped from his masonry like ashes carried by a storm. Ulula sat on a shelf and started peeping in panic, so loud that even her sister woke from her sleep. Both owls exchanged anxious peeps. Only when Nekyia took heart, chased after Death on silent wings into the realm of the living and Ulula followed her, the halls fell silent again. Silent as a grave.

–––

  
The cold of night crept through the cracks of the wooden logs that closed the windows of castle Crest and breezed into Adrette’s nightgown, forcing her to draw her cloak closer around her shoulders. She had been roused from her sleep by the panicking cries of an owl and, still drowsy from sleep, she roamed the stairs, looking for something she could not name. Yet she did not find anything. No owls, no living creature. Her right hand held a candle, which had almost burned out. Wax was oozing in thick droplets onto the bronze disc that held it, and the flame’s warm light danced over the tiny lake on top of the candle, as she set one tumbling foot in front of the other, trying not to fall. The candle lightened up only a small circle within an entire castle filled with darkness and could hardly avert the coldness of the halls. The candle burned down so quickly that she was afraid of having to find her way back in total darkness. As if the castle had suddenly grown bigger… or was the wax melting faster than usual?

Adrette was tired to death when she reached her bed. She placed the candle next to it, which was as good as burned out anyway, and fell asleep almost in an instant. It seemed to her that she had heard the darkness whisper into her ear: _You will not see the light of another day_ , but shadows could not speak, of course.

Only when she had fallen asleep and the last light went out, Ulula reached her room. Her breath was heavy and her little heart was beating up to the tips of the feathers on her head. She cried out her warning of Adrette’s death in such a haste that one or the other note faded into a broken peep. She had roused half the castle in no time, yet she was too late. Adrette moaned in her sleep, but did not wake up, and nobody could help her. She mumbled Darius’ name, but nobody knew heard her, and everybody would have misunderstood. Nobody noticed the tawny owl on a branch of the tree in front of her window, either, or that her calls were for the princess, a requiem for her last night on earth. In the course of the night, her body became increasingly colder and her heartbeat went slower, until it stopped altogether.

She was pale like foam on the sea in moonlight. Her peaceful expression did nothing to change the blue of her cold lips, the dark circlets under her eyes or her twisted fingers, which were clinging to her dress above her chest. Reflections of candlelight danced like will-o-wisps on the tapestries and the stone walls and made her body hardly distinguishable from a ghost. When the king checked on her early in the morning, he caressed her hands and was horrified by their coldness, then he burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nobody except those people who attended a certain lecture at university with me will get the joke in the chapter title, but it’s okay.


	7. Running Out of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I told you no boy

Death found Darius between the ripening spikes on a field of wheat. He was lying in the gentle morning sun and his nose was buried under the tip of his hat, thinking about everything and nothing. A light late summer breeze caused the feather on his hat to move to and fro and almost made him believe the world was whole and wholesome. He remembered that this was not the case as a giant shadow blocked the sunlight from him. Darius blinked, took off his hat and rose drowsily. Within a circle of a few feet, the world around him turned dark and was shaken by freezing cold wind that ripped the spelt from the spikes. He would have liked to run from what was awaiting him like the spelt of the wheat, but he got no chance.

The shadows of death wavered in the air like ink in water. His dark blue frock looked like shapeless darkness with the sun shining from behind him. Had he had a face, it would have showed rage and disappointment, but the shadows did not form a face. Instead, stormy darkness flickered like a dark flame. Before Darius had a chance to speak a single word to his master, death’s voice thundered: “Darius, by defying me, you have defied nature itself. People die, and you are in no position to try to change that. You have misused my arts.”

His voice sent burning chills through Darius’s blood and bones. He sat open mouthed but silent amidst the field of wheat which had been reaped so abruptly. He was only able to produce a sound after he had shaken himself. He wanted to make up a good lie and excuses, but he could not think of any, and his tongue turned loose. “Master, I vowed not to misuse your arts. Would I against your will –”

“Spare me your lies, Darius. If Fama’s gossip was the only proof of you saving the princess, I might be willing to accept the possibility that she made up the rumour. But only you would have been able to turn her hourglass upside down. Do you think I did not know when people’s hourglasses run empty? I did not believe you foolish enough to think your little intervention would go unnoticed.”

He took an hourglass from the shadows, which Darius recognised in an instant. Adrette’s hourglass. And it had run completely empty. His mind went blank.

“I had tried to –” Darius tried to protest, but Death ignored him. He pointed with a finger of darkness and shadows grabbed his apprentice, until his heart and lungs felt cold and empty. When they let go of him and Darius could feel the warmth of his body once more, he felt like he was merely a loudmouth like all the other boys, and the feather on his head went grey and shabby.

Death raised his right hand and crushed Adrette’s hourglass before Darius’ feet with so much force that one would never have thought an arm of nothing to be capable of it. With a high-pitched, vibrating sound, the glass shattered into thousand of pieces, which shone with all he colours of the rainbow and covered the spikes of the wheat in glittering sand. The pillars of cherry wood burst into two pieces and lay down between the wheat. Darius was lost for words, his eyes grew big as marbles.

“End of discussion.” Death grumbled and left his apprentice alone with the parts and shards of the emptied hourglass. Once the shadows were gone, jolly sunlight fell on the wheat once more, but fear and regret choke him and dug a hole in his stomach. The long shadows which the linden and birch trees cast in the evening sun spoke no word to him. Not even the song of birds or chirping crickets were to be heard.

–––

  
Clouds gathered above the courtyard. It felt like attending a funeral. The only thing missing was a crow, croaking and mocking the vanity of people. The silence was broken as Darius passed the gates to Crest, where he was taken like a thief long hunted for.

“Murderer!”

“Warlock!”

“Traitor!” the crowd yelled. Their leaders were Adrette’s wet nurse, who had taken off her hood to cry into the cloth, and the king himself. Wrath made him look unusually regal, as one might not have expected from such a chubby figure with a flowy beard.

Darius gulped. He felt his worst fears becoming true. His tongue made big mistakes. “So Adrette truly died? So soon?”

“If she died, you asked?” the king thundered. “You poisoned her yourself! You have charmed my daughter and made fools of us all! But you are a warlock and in league with death and the devil! We should never have welcomed you in Crest!”

“No, wait! You got this wrong! I tried to save her!” Darius pleaded, but nobody was willing to believe him. He was beaten und forced by threats, pitchforks, and broomsticks. A miserable train of people like starved, rugged crows, pushed Darius across the courtyard and led to the court building not far from the castle.

  
The building looked as if soaked in blood in light of the setting sun falling through the cylindric glass windows. After a few minutes Darius had learned to accept the cries of the audience calling for his blood as background noise and to ignore them. It was harder to ignore the tribunal, where a bony judge and a fat judge sat next to the jury in the ranks. The bony judge was an old, scrawny fellow whose pear-shaped face held more wrinkles than a dry leaf. His black velvet robes looked worn even from a distance, and they smelled like mothballs. The fat one looked like being in his forties, but his hair was starting to become grey already. Apart from that, his pig nose was hard to overlook.

The fat judge knocked on the table with a wooden hammer and made the crowd fall silent with a grumpy clearing of his throat and with bustling gestures of his left hand. “Silence! Silence!”, he demanded. His voice was higher and less authoritarian than the grumpy sound suggested. Furthermore, his robes were far too big for him, so that the sleeves kept falling over his fingers, which made him look far less intimidating than the bony judge next to him. Darius had a hard time not to laugh at him. “The trial has started.” the fat judge announced. “The king has called in an emergency case. Herald Aeolus, please.”

The echo of murmurs slowly faded from the hall. As soon as it was completely silent, Aeolus cleared his throat, throbbed his chest, and unrolled a thin scroll of paper to read out its content loud and clearly for everyone. “Darius the vagrant, a stranger in our realm.” he said. “You are accused of having poisoned the princess.”

“I’m a healer, not a vagrant, get your facts right!” Darius protested.

“You are accused of having poisoned the princess.” repeated the bony judge sharply. He was more relaxed than his colleague. “Of conspiracy against Crest, the crown, poisoning, sorcery, a pact with the devil, and conscious use of his arts.” he continued in the voice of a rusty hinge. Even without his high seat and his black robes, one could have believed that he was a judge, in contrast to his unwillingly comical colleague.

“Strictly speaking, the arts of Death.” Darius corrected, but nobody cared for the difference.

“The evidence is clear.” claimed the bony judge and was immediately supported by nods, murmured approval and helpful interjections from the audience. “How long have you been a warlock?”

“I’ve never been a warlock!”

The judge’s eyes turned into malevolent slits. “Can you conjure supernatural powers or can you not?”

“I was able to move freely between the realms of the living and the dead, and to talk to owls and the Caladrius, if that’s what you call conjuring supernatural powers. Until quite recently. Like, an hour ago recently.” Darius said with a sigh.

“Can you or can you not?” the judge repeated patiently.

“No.”, Darius groaned. He was too tired to make a fuzz over contemporary trial habits.

“He is lying! He has conjured doves and hamsters from his hat!” interrupted a fat washwoman in the audience.

“He charmed the princess!” the king said with disgust.

“He killed the chicken!” somebody in the crowd could be heard.

For a moment, Darius was too perplexed to react to that reproach but he soon composed himself. “With a knife. And I healed it immediately! I’m sorry for the damn chicken, but that was only a means of demonstration!”

“So you are capable of conjuring supernatural powers.” the judge concluded. He adjusted his monocle although it had not moved, and wrinkled his hooked nose.

“Next point. Let us begin the actual trial. The witnesses are to speak first. Afterwards, you are allowed to defend yourself.” he declared with as little passion as if he was reading out a recipe for cakes, not the process of a trial.

Aeolus had another look on the scroll in his hands and read out the name of the first witness. “First witness. Caieta, wet nurse of the princess Adrette Laurana Lobelia of Crest, first of that name. Please step forward.”

The chubby wet nurse with her tiny round nose stepped through the hall of the building and bowed politely before she looked up to the judges. She did not meet Darius’ eyes as she spoke. “The accused has repeatedly given the king and the princess a drink with herbs. I have even seen that once.”

The fat judge leaned forward, as far as his stocky limbs allowed him to. “Does the accused deny that?”

“To be more precise, I made medicine from feverfew, fennel root, celery root, and parsley root, even boiled with sugar cane, for that it makes it more –”

“So the accused has given the princess a drink of herbs in the night before her death.” the bony judge interrupted him, adjusted his monocle and took a brief note.

“Did you also speak a charm?” the fat judge wanted to know.

“I wished her a good night.” Darius said truthfully. The only charms he had added to that were prayers to God that Death might not notice the cheat with the hourglass, and that had been both pious and in vain.

“If he has not bewitched her, he poisoned her!” shrieked the wet nurse.

“Doesn’t anybody wonder why the king was healed by my medicine? And Adrette was well until–” Darius interjected, but the bony judge would not let him.

“Silence! You may speak on your own behalf afterwards.” he ordered. He nodded to the wet nurse, who snapped for air and would obviously have liked to keep ranting. However, she merely bowed, as far as her corpulence allowed her to, and went off with her nose lifted up.

Afterwards, the judge nodded to Aeolus, who went on reading out the scroll. “Second witness. The king of Crest shall speak on his own behalf.”

The king adjusted the velvet hat with the ostrich feathers on his head and trod towards the open space for the witnesses in the middle of the building.

“My daughter has told me everything, but I did not see the danger.” he said with a sigh. He spit out the words like hot soup. “Before my sweet queen died when Adrette was still a child, she taught her a song about death, that was to warn us from the reaper and his minions. But the accused has made her sing it out aloud, and cursed the notes!”

“I am quite sure that she did not tell the story like that. And she did not pass on her mother’s words like that, either. The song was supposed to ease her fear of death, not make it worse.” Darius growled, which made the king raise an eyebrow, but the fast beating of the fat judge’s wooden hammer on the table interrupted him.

“Does the accused deny that?” asked the judge.

“I just told you–” Darius groaned.

“I didn’t ask for that!” thundered the fat judge and bolted his hammer a few times on the table. Enraged, his voice sounded even more like a a grunting piglet.

The bony judge made a calming gesture with his scrawny fingers and nodded to the king. “Do you want to add something, your highness?” His words crackled like dry twigs crushed by heavy stones. When the king shook his head, he bade Aeolus speak.

“The witnesses confirm that the accused prepared poison, conjured supernatural powers and sung magical charms.” Aeolus read out. “The accused does not deny that.”

“Why is that written on a scroll before my trial has even started?” Darius asked, but nobody heeded his question.

“So we will speak the sentence.” the bony judge announced. The fat one next grinned with excitement.

Only now Darius’ stomach started to feel like a big black hole, which unfortunately did not swallow up anything. “And my defense?” he inquired helplessly. The judges ignored him and turned to talk to each other in a whisper. Before long, they turned around again and instructed Aeolus to read out the judgment.

“He is accused of witchcraft, poisoning, and murdering the princess.” the herald announced. “He has been found guilty in all points and will be executed on the pyre.”

Darius felt his heart stop beating. “You can’t simply execute people!” he complained as two guards grabbed his arms. He met the king’s eyes as a warning, but it was ignored.

“You will see that we can.” the fat judge corrected him. As he was grinning like that, Darius was again reminded of a piglet wallowing in dirt and mud with passion. He did not try to defend himself against the guards pushing and pulling him. A fire burned in the eyes of Crest that could have ignited a pyre for Darius on the spot.

He yelled at them in vain: “My king, you know that you are making a mistake!”

The sky above the courtyard darkened and an unpleasant sweet smell was in the air. The first stars arose as torches were lit and hundreds of pointed weapons led the train from court to the pyre. Shadows danced on the castle walls in the firelight and the silence of the evening was broken by the murmuring voices of the people of Crest:

“Burn! Burn! Burn, warlock!”

He was about to ask how people had come up with the absurd idea that he might be a murderer, or that he had harmed Adrette in purpose. But before words passed his lips, a tall, golden-locked woman caught his eye. Her lips formed an amused smile. She stood out in the crowd like a rock in the sea.

“Because I told them. Because a little rumour about dark arts makes a people believe many things.” Fama whispered into the wind, as if she had read Darius’ thoughts and answered them. Darius felt a chill as he saw her, but nobody else took notice of her. Darius felt a lump in his long throat and followed Fama with his eyes until the raging mob had pushed him too far away from her to see. All the time people kept screaming, the warlock should burn, burn, burn, like the fame that Fama had bestowed upon him.

With rhythmical clattering of the guard’s armory, like a chant for war, he was led to the pyre. Pyres were wonderful entertainment. Much less messy than the scaffold. Also much better suited to people who were in league with the flames of hell. Darius already saw the fire burning at his feet, although at first people were merely gathering branches, straw and spray and pouring oil over it. He tried to think of clever excuses. Thought of threatening to curse them all if they did not free him, or to darken the sun and envelop the peaceful kingdom of Crest in eternal shadows.

Unfortunately, even without his efforts, the sun was just sinking into a sea of darkness, anyway, and it made way for a deep blue wall in the eastern sky, and his voice cracked even at the attempt to start speaking. When the torch-bearers approached, accompanied by rooting and raging cries, he saw already saw the blaze which would devour him dancing before his eyes. It seemed to him he felt the heat and how the pain climbed up from his toes, helpless pain due to the flames that fed on his flesh and that were made even more hungry by the smell of oil, like wolves by a trail of blood.

As he blinked, he saw the crowd again in the starlight, but the wood to his feet was not yet lit. The oil that was supposed to light the fire, however, already dripped from his hair and the formerly beautiful feathered hat, which now felt heavy on his head.

“Just a moment.” the king demanded from the guards, who brought torches. “I have a question.” The guards looked confused under their helmets, but nodded and let the king pass.

“Adrette never liked to sing her mother’s song in front of people.”

“Has she ever told you why?” Darius asked him. The king shook his head. Darius kept digging deeper while trying to keep the oil-dripping feather on his head from falling into his face: “She told me she deemed her mother’s words sad, although they had been intended as a comfort. But she liked the song as I played it with her. I encouraged her to sing it so that she would lose her fear of death. It did not expect he would come to her so soon, though.”

“Are you really in league with Death?” the king asked. His voice went deeper with every word.

Darius took a deep breath before he answered. “I am his apprentice. I would like to say more on this matter, but nobody would believe it, anyway.” he grumbled.

The king drew a deep sigh and Darius thought he saw a tear in his eye. “Untie him.” he murmured.

The guards pretended not to have heard him, so he repeated the order with the force of thunder. “I said untie him! And give him a room in the dungeons. Moist and dark, if you can manage it.” he added with a growl.

Everybody’s mouth stood open, including Darius. “What are you waiting for?” the king thundered when nobody moved. “Or do you want to object?”

The people of Crest whispered and murmured, but no voice was raised, so he nodded to Aeolus. Aeolus cleared his throat and announced to the crowd: “The accused is sentenced to a life in the dungeons.”

“What have I done now to make my sentence even worse?” Darius grumbled, but nobody paid attention. He let them untie him and help him descend from the oil-dripping pyre, but his joy was limited. His own lack of power made him feel like a stray pup.

“Even magic which is meant to benefit is still black magic.” said the king and turned away from him.


	8. The World of the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Black on Black

The world around Adrette turned black. As she opened her eyes again, her heart would have  stopped beating, if it still could. A figure in a night-blue frock peeled from the endless black that surrounded her. The folds in the frock floated like silk in a gentle breeze, although there was none, and they ended somewhere in the shadows. The figure’s silhouette was vaguely human, but where one would expect a face, there was the pale skull of a heron standing out from the shadows. Its beak was as long as Adrette’s arms, and blackness looked at her from giant eye sockets.

“You are Death.” she realised. It had been a question in her head, but it came out as a statement.

A pale red light lit up in the eye sockets of the bird skull and went out again like a candle whose wick went down in liquid wax. Death nodded. “I did my best to make your passing from this world quick and easy. Are you still afraid of me?”

“Someone told me I need not be afraid.” Adrette heard herself say, but it did not feel as if she had any control over her body. She took the shadowy hand that reached out for her without thinking.

“Is that somebody my insolent apprentice Darius, by any chance?” Death asked. Adrette’s mouth stood open, but she did not get the chance to ask what this was supposed to mean.

“Nevermind. I am the only power in this world that is stronger than will. And the realm of the dead is the only realm you will never leave again. Make yourself comfortable. If you are truly not afraid.”

As soon as he said that, the bird skull vanished in the shadows and left Adrette alone in blackness, which devoured everything else. Adrette wanted to scream in panic, for she suddenly felt blind as a bat, but no sound escaped her throat. Her eyes only slowly got used to the darkness However, after long it seemed to her that the blackness gave way to veils of grey.

Adrette had a look around. The world around her was a grey pulp that faded into mist. She saw dry stones to her feet, but she did not feel them. Here and there a bush of thorns grew between the rocks, but no blooming plants. The air was still and without a sound. Her surroundings looked cold, but she did not feel cold, even though she was bare-footed and her only garment was her thin nightgown. Adrette looked down to her hands and feet. Her skin was even paler than usual, like moonlight beyond a veil of clouds.

“What are you looking at, child?” the voice of a stranger addressed her. “Everyone down here looks like this. You’ll get used to it.” It was the voice of a bony man, who reminded her of a scarecrow having lost a fight against a swarm of birds.

“I imagined the realm of the dead differently. Like heaven or hell. But not as… boring.” Adrette said with a gulp and tried moving her fingers. It felt like using a tool, not moving her own body.

As a tear rolled down her cheek, which she did not feel, either, the old man patted her back and said: “Now don’t cry. Give it a few hundred years in the realm of the dead and your soul will learn to feel again. It just takes a while. Maybe it’s only imagination… but still better than nothing.” He chuckled between his pitted teeth and vanished in the mist.

Adrette’s eyes trailed off. It seemed to her she saw rocks here and there, and gnarled trees in the mist, dry to their trunks, which wound like scraps of paper in a fire. One or the other ghost crossed her path and vanished again without greeting her or even paying attention to her. Adrette did not bother much. She had no intention of getting to know the dead. She leaned on a rock and hid her face behind her hands. “I am sorry, Darius. I think I’m a little afraid again.” she told the abyss.

And then she brooded and brooded and only realised how miserable that made her situation as an owl landed on her lap and picked at her dress with care. Adrette lowered her hands and greeted the bird. The answer was a quiet, high-pitched _Hoo-o ulula_!

“Hello… Ulula.” Adrette repeated and forgot to wonder why she understood what the owl said. “I am pleased to meet you, too.”

But she failed to smile, and that made Ulula sad, too. _Hoo?_ , she asked. _Hoo-tooo_.

“I am glad to hear that Death is actually a nice guy.”

_Hoo-to tooo-tooo._  
  
“What do mean, I should not lose hope? If Darius had such good intentions, he should tell me why he did not tell me of his master, if I am not to be afraid of him. Or of this grey wasteland.” Adrette complained. But she got tired of pouting very soon. If her dignity had allowed it and if she had had any tears left, she would have cried in her misery like a little child whose toy was broken. She lacked arguments, for only her heart had some, very good ones even. But even loving hearts can sometimes lose their spirits, if they seem to be alone against the world. So Adrette nodded helplessly as Ulula nestled down in her gown and called out to her. Adrette understood about half of it.

“Darius did that for me?” She did not know what difference that made, though, and thus it remained the only question.

So Ulula’s cries grew more urgent and loud, and she pulled Adrette’s gown until she finally rose up, dried the tears from her eyes and followed her. What could she possibly have to lose?

–––

  
Meanwhile, Darius tried in vain to sit comfortably on the straw in the dungeons. Finally, he gave up and tried to take a survey of his situation instead. He sat in dirty and moist lodgings and droplets dripped from the mossy stones in the walls. After a few minutes of staying in there he felt as if he would fall sick and die as well. After all, the air was foul and he was in danger of choking on it, the light was bad for his eyes and the damp cold crept into his boney like mist into cloth.

It was difficult to make out the time of day in those dungeons, but as the shadows of the walls vanished in pitch-black darkness, which swallowed all shapes, he figured that night fell. Little light passed the tiny window. He felt it more than he actually saw that a figure peeled from the shadows and towered above him. “Are you here to mock me one last time, master?”

“Death does not mock anybody.” The voice of Death was calm and warm, as if he was telling the boy a bedtime story and not visiting him in the dungeons.

“But I considered it a good chance to remind you that you are governed by the same laws of nature which you sought to reverse when you manipulated the princess’ hourglass.”

Darius did not answer, but he blinked and looked up to see what Death took from the shapeless shadows and handed him over. He guessed it already, and his eyes gradually got used to the darkness, so that he could see an hourglass in the moonlight. His own hourglass. Darius gulped when he saw the pile of sand that displayed the span of his life. His hourglass was made of plain but carefully polished walnut wood, robust and firm, and its only decoration was the shape of a feather burnt into the glass of the lower glass. Only a small part of the rough, irregularly shaped grains of sand had already run into the lower glass. Apparently, he had long years left to live. Words failed him to describe the feeling of holding the span of his own life in his hands, most likely to be spend in this hole. Grain by grain, life and death ran through the glass between his fingers. Eternity and infinity ran from one glass into another.

As Death dissolved into shadows once more and disappeared, Darius thought he heard a “Goodbye.” from the shadows, but that might have been his imagination. He also thought he heard a quiet “I am sorry.” but that might have been sheer wishful thinking.

He had another look at the hourglass. The sand run quickly, but in jumps, as if thick, rough grains tumbled over rocky ground, and not running smoothly from one flask into another. He shook the hourglass and turned it upside down, but that did not change anything about the pace of the sand running down. The grains seemed to defy gravity. Darius could hardly believe that he had been able to turn around Adrette’s hourglass not long before.

“Master, do you hear me?” he whispered beyond hope.

No reply. Darius sank to his knees and carelessly left the hourglass to roll over the floor. Even when it was toppling over the straw on the ground, the sand ran from into the lower glass, as if it did not make a difference whether it was standing or lying. “Understood. I made an unforgivable mistake.” he told the world, which did not care. “I disobeyed my master and he is right to punish me. My fame is gone, my master is angered, and Adrette will never wake up again.”

Tears were in his eyes as he tossed his hat to the ground and trampled on the Caladrius-feather. He lifted his hourglass and threw it against a wall. When it did not burst, he shouted at the shadows: “You are cruel, master! To leave me the hourglass in mockery!”

That was how Nekyia found him. She landed on his shoulder with a sigh and held her head low. Only when she snapped for air with a gulp, Darius paid her attention. “What do you want? Tell somebody else of people’s impending death long after they have actually passed away, because you have been tarrying on the way from home to the world of the living like a squirrel gathering nuts, as usual. It’s no use to me anymore. I will sit in this pit for the end of my far too long days and am just getting used to the company of rats and mould.”

Nekyia complained and uttered a hurt _Hoohoohoohoooo_ , and afterwards the sounds she made were so unpleasant that Darius muttered a broken “I’m sorry.” between his teeth. Absentminded, he stroked her head, and in silence they agreed that words were not helpful at the moment. The warmth of another body, however, was.

  
Darius could not remember when he had fallen asleep, but he woke up with a nagging headache and knowing that he must look like a scarecrow with so dark circles under his eyes that chances were that even Death might not recognise him anymore. Outside the dungeon, the day was much darker than one would expect from the early hour. Grey clouds hid the rosy dawn and seemed only to wait for a good moment to pour masses of rain over the world. Yet they did not. Only a cold breeze was blowing, as if the winds had suddenly decided to turn late summer into autumn.

Nekyia slept peacefully under his hat and did not move, only her chest rose and fell. Not for the first or last time was he jealous of her sound sleep. It could have made little children jealous.

The sounds that awakened him were unkind words from Fama’s lips. Those were: “Get up, sleepyhead. The clouds are up in the sky, and they are crying tears of joy because of your silly stance.”

Darius rubbed his brow and neck. As if it could help to make him look more dignified, he took off his head and stroked his curls. He almost startled Nekyia by doing that, but she kept dozing on his head. The hat fell to the ground and lay there without heed. Darius looked up and saw Aeolus and Fama behind the bars of the dungeon. One or the other lock of Fama’s hair had gotten loose and her eyes flashed with even more deceit than usual, but apart from that, she did not look like being wounded from the fight with Darius.

“What do you want?” Darius asked.

“Ingrateful cub.” Fama said. She seemed to lisp a bit, but her tongue was still too sharp to bear signs of having been cut lately. How many tongues could she possibly have? “We are here to help you.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because nobody else does.”

“We are not your enemies.” Aeolus added. “Fama is nobody’s enemy. She does not act out of reason or logic. She acts so that more exciting things happen.”

Fama’s sharp lips formed a grin and through the bars she handed him the sword he had used to sever her tongues. Darius took it, but raised his eyebrows and tried to look extra unfriendly. “What am I to do with that?”

“Force your master to talk to you, maybe? Either that or could cut your last meal from the tiny chicken on your head.” Fama said. She turned away with a clangorous cackle and asked Aeolus to follow her.

Nekyia cooed in disgust, but neither she nor Darius attempted to stop Fama from leaving. She cooed with even stronger disgust as Darius drew the blade from its scabbard and set it to his neck, but Darius ignored her. His eyes fell back to the hourglass. He was surprised to see that the sand was suddenly running faster, as if the tunnel between the upper and the lower flask had widened, although the item had not changed. Was it only his imagination? Suspicious, he moved away the blade from his neck, but his eyes were set on the hourglass. As soon as he dropped the sword on the ground, the sand barely weaseled through the glass, grain by grain. _Even slower and it will stop moving._ he thought.

He got curious and moved the blade back to his neck. Suddenly the sand rushed into the lower flask like water from a broken dam. Only when Darius put the sword aside, the sand calmed down and crumbled so quietly that it hardly seemed to move at all. He raised the hourglass and had a look at the sand from up close. The speed of its movement changed for real. At that very moment, it was rippling slowly like a snail, no matter how he turned and tossed the hourglass. He had an idea. Maybe the hourglass was more than scorn and mockery, after all. Maybe the hourglass did not determine a person’s span of life, it merely displayed it.

Which was why his attempt to help Adrette had been futile in the long run. His thoughts found their way back to her and remained there. To the way she wrinkled her nose, to her sandy hair and her tiny freckles, to her immense curiosity, to her dapper smile. He exchanged long gazes with Nekyia, who whispered a hesitant _Hoothoot_. Then he nodded and said: “Looks like my master never told me the whole truth about hourglasses. And like he punished me more severely than I deserve. But if he’s not willing to see me once more, I will make him see me, right?”

With that he drove the sword through his heart.


	9. Until Death Do Us Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The birds are the actual real heroes in this thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW if you’re wondering why Death is indeed male in this thing, the answer is that I really, really wanted a deep, deep, warm, male voice for his non-existant song. Yes, many of my questionable creative choices are made like this and it’s why I officially shouldn’t be allowed to plot anything.

The black faded from Darius’ eyes to make room for wafts of mist, gnarled plants and cold stone in different shades of grey. The sky in the realm of the dead was a spiral of black clouds, which looked as if they were to pour cats and dogs over the earth. Probably skeleton cats and dogs. Yet never a single drop of water fell down, and the clouds neither dissolved nor were they ever emptied. It had been one thing to pass the masonry of Death and see the hourglasses of the living. To pass the realm of the dead when he could not be sure anymore whether he would ever return, on the other hand, was a whole lot more unsettling. There was nothing alive and breathing. Hardly any plants, not even grass or moss, no animals. No sound, no smell, no rock hang loose. The realm of the dead was simply still. It was not disturbing because one might expect a monster or murderer behind every corner, like in nightly streets. It was disturbing precisely because it was so quiet and still that one could hardly imagine how anything in possession of a soul might hide behind the grey rocks.

The echo of his own name interrupted his thoughts. “Once more, I was faster than you.” He greeted as Nekyia came fluttering to him and rested on his shoulder.

“Master, I am here to reconcile master and apprentice.” he then addressed the shadows. “And if I still had my hat, I’d take it off now.”

Death sat on a rock that glittered in a silvery light, as if chiseled with diamonds. Darius could not tell how long he might have been sitting there. He leaned on his scythe and let his black frock melt into the darkness. He waited like for a stray cat that had finally decided to return to its elderly masters after having brought trouble and chaos into the neighbourhood on its journeys through the night. The expression on the heron skull was unreadable. He was not particularly impressed by the insolence, but maybe Darius had not intended to be insolent at all, but he was dead serious. It was  always difficult to tell whether Darius had made a joke or not. It was easier with Death: Death did not make jokes. Eons made even the best jokes old. “What do you want? You are only a human. You have an hourglass like everyone else. And you emptied it yourself.” Death dismissed him as he rose from the rock.

“Master, as much as I love and respect you, Adrette’s death was untimely! I’m sure I could have cured her sickness, if given the chance. Let’s settle that between master and apprentice!”

Death’s voice roared like distant thunder. “But there can be no life without death. I am the most natural thing in the world. Has Fama taught you nothing? She does what is in her nature. She is fulfilling a purpose in this world. That is no different from what I do. You are in no position to question either of us.”

 

“I won’t go without Adrette! And if I have to sing or whatever!”

If it was possible for Death to despair, he did now. “Don’t be silly.” he groaned.

“Then take me seriously!”

There was no reply in words, but pure black swallowed the realm of the dead, is if someone had spilled ink over it. Darius looked around and felt blind. The realm of the dead might be grey and dreary, but at least there was something. Rocks, dry plants, the sky full of clouds. Now he saw nothing but darkness without dimensions. Only a look at his ghostly hand, which sent off an iridescent glow, made him believe that he was not blind. But he could see neither Death nor Nekyia. He could not hear her confused cooing, which reminded him more of a pigeon than of an owl, was nowhere to be heard, either.

“Master?” he asked hesitantly.

The answer came from nowhere and everywhere: “There is your chance to prove to me that your will is stronger than mine. One only. Try.”

Darius’ hands felt their way around, but his hands could not feel anything solid. Only when he ducked and his fingertips touched the cold ground, he knew that he was still in the realm of the dead – or he believed that the ground was cold. “Do you expect darkness to hinder me? You have raised me in there!” he claimed. The only reply was laughter from the shadows. Darius wished for the sword that had severed Fama’s tongues as easily as that, but the blackness had no shape and hung in the air like incense. Finally, Darius took a deep breath and stopped looking for anything solid by touching and feeling. He thought he heard his name, but was probably wrong. “Master?” No reply. “Nekyia?” Neither.

So he gulped and ran. He ran without destination, blindly following his nose. He ran and ran, invisible to the world that kept on turning around him even without light, and he was relieved to tell himself he could hear his own breath.

“Where do you think you’re going?” An echo came from nothingness.

Darius did not answer and ran. Further and further.

“Stand still.” The shadows urged him, but he ignored them like the darkness around him. “Stand still!” The shadows screamed, louder, harsher. As Darius did not heed their warning but kept on running, and his lips formed a broad smile, the shadows shrieked as if in pain and rage. He was about to rejoice for being rid of them when a pain like thunder ran through his body. Suddenly, he felt where the sword had stabbed him when he had taken his own life, and it felt as if warm blood was gushing from the wound like a fountain. He felt sick because of the sweet smell and the dazzling feeling of not being able to see properly in the darkness. Without thinking, he clutched his heart and pricked his fingers into his skin, desperately trying to stop the waves of blood. Which made his lifeblood gush forth from his chest even quicker. He felt pale and cold and his limbs being heavy. Just in time he remembered that this was to be a test of will, and he told the shadows, gasping: “Don’t be foolish, master. The dead do not feel pain anymore.”

The answer resounded like an echo: “The despair in your voice proves you a liar.” Those words were accompanied by increasing pain in Darius’ limbs, who believed by now to live through the ailments of all his patients. Nagging headaches, which made it hard to think, drooling eyes that kept him from seeing, venomous snakes that devoured his intestines, the pains of inflammation and eczema burning his skin, paralysed limbs that he wanted to move but could not, and which therefore  only made grotesque contorted movements.

“Yes, I am afraid of pain.” Darius admitted and felt the phantom pain at that very moment stronger than when he had actually driven the blade through his chest. “But I have dealt with them once, I can do so again. It can’t be worse than Adrette’s illness!”

“What about this, then?”

“What about what?” Darius asked gasping, but there was no reply. The blackness dissolved into pure white. He saw and heard nothing but pure light. Darius had a look around. Everything around him was unnatural, sterile white. He would never have thought that light could be so eerie. This light felt even more dead than the deep black which had surrounded him until now. Even his glowing ghostly body felt even more unreal now. At least that had been visible in the dark. He wanted to move and look for something solid in this white world, but although he moved his limbs, he did not seem to get any step further in this void without horizon. He cried and shouted for his master, for Adrette, for other people. But he could not hear his own voice. Even his thoughts felt blank before long.

_This is what happens when you die all on your own, isn’t it?_ He realised and felt helpless. His flight from the shadows felt in vain and long ago, as if he had attempted it eons ago and failed. He wanted to scream in panic, but no sound passed his throat. Every failed attempt made him lose control, until he roamed the white world in despair. After what might have been hours, months, years, maybe only seconds, which he had spend being lost in a world without tie or space, he gave up and sank down on his knees. He stayed there. And sat. And sat.

He tried to remember the songs of birds, but he could not. Words rippled through his head like the sand of his hourglass, but they did not make any sense.  
    

A grain.

Another grain.

Another grain.

Grain

Grain

Grain

Grai…

Gr…  
  
Until, finally, sounds took shape within his head. The sound of the lute in his hands as he and Adrette had sung the song of her mother, to make her lose her fear of death. Adrette’s voice, calling for him.

“Darius!” he heard Adrette’s voice rather in his head than in his ears. Without thinking, he touched his ears as if he could not believe that they functioned again instead of being attached to his curly head like sails. His spirits rose a bit. As he had a look around, the walls of white gradually dissolved into the grey thorns and scant rocks of the realm of the dead. Waves of questions flooded his head, but he git no chance to voice any of them. Adrette was faster and her arms wrapped around him.

“We have found you, after all!” She beamed with pride. “So the owl did not talk gibberish! You can roam between the realms of the dead and the living!”

Darius absentmindedly freed himself form her embrace. “That was true once. In our current situation, however, I had to think of a less elegant way of coming here. Unfortunately, I could not think of one except stabbing myself.” he admitted. He felt for his chest without thinking. “And as soon as I came here, I managed to enrage my master even further…”

Adrette cocked her head. “So, Death is your master, after all?”

“I wanted to bring you back. My master punished me for my disobedience by taking from the power to do that in a more elegant way than dying myself.”

Adrette was lost for words, and lacked blood to blush, so she merely raised her shoulders, smiled, and threw shy glances towards Ulula.

As Darius noticed her awkward reaction, he hurried to add: “I simply thought my master had punished me more severely than I deserved. I couldn’t just let that pass.”

When Adrette’s stance seemed to suggest that it was high time for him to explain himself a bit further, Darius cleared his throat and told her to listen. But he could be sure of her attention, anyway. “I made a pact with Death. Or rather, I did not, I was a baby. But I didn’t object. I never met my real parents, Death found and raised me. He made me his foster son and apprentice. He is like a father for me, and moreover my master. He taught me his arts of healing, how to roam freely between the realms of the dead and the living, and I understood the awkward cooing of those owls. But that is about all there is to it. I can only save lives if a person’s hourglass hasn’t run empty yet. Yours had, so I wouldn’t have had the right to heal you. I disobeyed my master. Now I am here and have not been able to save you.”

Adrette shook her head. “Still, it was sweet of you. Spare me the moral of this tale. Please tell me this one does not need one.” Adrette wanted to have the world simpler than it was, even though she knew better. Darius deemed this unreasonable, but he did not want her any other way.

As if Death had listened to them talking, they noticed him in the shadows, watching them like a falcon sitting on the roof of a church, eager for prey. He appeared like a black hole in the dreary world. Darius remembered just in time that his heart did not beat anymore before he panicked. But he was granted all the time in the world to calm down. Death waited for the children  to talk, who stood in front of him and put all their determination and spirit they could muster into the clasp of their hands around each other, and into their pale faces. “I am impressed.” Death admitted. “To unite two ghosts in a world that knows no borders.”

Only when Nekyia and Ulula cooed happily, Darius and Adrette realised they had not been addressed. Adrette found her words again first, put her hands on her hips and started: “Mister Death!” Nobody had the chance to think about whether that was an adequate address. “I am sorry to be the subject of disagreement between you and your foster-son.” she explained, her head held high, although her chest was trembling with excitement, as if her heart was still beating. “But Darius acted out of good will and tried to save my life. My gratitude for this noble gesture does not allow me to see him punished!”

“That is none of your concern.” Death waved her away.

“Whatever happens. We will stay together.” Adrette reached for Darius’ hand again, although she kept glanced at Death. Darius felt comfortably warmth despite not having a real body anymore, which affirmed him in not contradicting her.

“My apprentice is an insolent thug and not worthy of your affection.” Death said.

“People not worthy of affection need it most.”

Darius was unsure whose statement hurt him more, so he shot glances at both of them and answered neither. The shadows of Death wavered restlessly through the air, like thoughts shoot through living bodies. Finally, an unusual sight helped him make up his mind. A great white heron, whose milky white feathers shone against the world of the dead like pure sunlight, sat down at Adrette’s feet. She was about to step back, but she was busy standing her ground. She eyed the beautifully shining bird, which did not quite fit the picture of the world of the dead, with cautious curiosity. Then she recognised the bird as the one that cured her father.

Caladrius ignored the children and slowly approached Death. Light and shadow seemed to have a silent conversation. There was an alternation of white feathers flickering like stars on the night-sky and being swallowed by shadows, which grew on Death’s skull like ivy on a tree. Finally, Death shook his head. “Even if I forgive him, he must be punished. We cannot simply pretend nothing had happened.”

Caladrius seemed to say something, but Adrette only understood weird clicking sounds. “What does he say?”

“He proposed to bring me back to life.” Darius told her, but he could hardly believe his own words.

Death shook his head. “He would indeed be willing to bring you back to life, Darius. But I will not restore your healing arts. You are not my apprentice any longer.”

After these words, the air would have been still even in the world of the living. A flood of questions crossed Darius’ mind, but he only voiced one:

“What about Adrette?”

“You know the answer to that: her hourglass has run empty. There is no way she can come back to life.”

Darius reached for Adrette’s hand, and she was most surprised of all. “In that case, I decline. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m sorry to have disappointed your trust. I am not sorry, however, for having tried to save Adrette. And if I don’t want to live without her, that’s my decision.”

Death and Caladrius nodded gravely to each other.

“Accepted.” Death said. That was all. Nothing more. Darius disliked the silence more than he dared to admit. Even during his trial he had not felt so alone as he did now. Adrette did the right thing and closed her grip around his hand more firmly.

“If I’m not your apprentice anymore, am I no longer your son, either?” Darius finally asked.

Death gave no reply, but Darius believed to have heard a quiet sigh, gentle and warm. Nekyia nestled on his head and built a lodging out of the curls. Ulula rested on his shoulder and cried into his ear, a bit frantically, but lovingly. Thus, Darius had his answer nevertheless. He forced a smile as Death melted into the shadows and the heron skull disappeared like a rainbow when the air dries. Caladrius rose to the air on resounding wings.  
  
That left Darius, Adrette and the owls alone. “We have all eternity to discover the waste of the realm of the dead.” Darius said with a sigh. “Welcome to my home. I wish it was more pleasant, but there’s a certain charm to it. For those people who dislike it too colourful.”

Adrette had a look around. She would have enjoyed a breeze of fresh air, or an animal moving among the thorns, but there was nothing but grey wastelands. “Where are the other dead people?” she asked.

Darius shrugged. “The world of the dead has room for infinite numbers of people. Thus, it only makes sense if it extends to infinity, doesn’t it? That’s probably why we cannot see other ghosts. But they are here. Somewhere. …They only increase in number and never decrease, after all. We can look for them, if you like.”

Despite all these years as Death’s apprentice, he had no idea whether the world of the dead had borders or gates. He nodded to Adrette and led her hand in hand across these lands, without any set destination in mind. They walked slowly, for there was no need to hurry. The dead had all eternity. And if it would take them all eternity to find something beautiful, they did not mind. All that mattered was taking the first step. And they took the first step.

“I do not care if we do not find anybody else.” Adrette said. “You are with me. I think that is more beautiful than the sky above Crest. But this one already looks less grey to me, and I believe I heard a bird calling. Somewhere.”

However long they might have been wandering the solitude of the world of the dead, it was apparently not all eternity. However long the journey, and however dreary the grey mush of a countryside around them, which consisted of thick fog, rocks and thorns, their ghost hands never let go of each other. Eventually, they reached a river, glittering in setting sunlight. Golden spikes of wheat spread on the other side, moving gently in the breeze. A broad path wound between the fields and vanished in the horizon.

Death and Caladrius watched them from afar crossing the river and recovering the feeling of icy cold, running water on their naked toes. Caladrius sat on Death’s outstretched arm and gave him a questioning look. If there had been flesh and skin on Death’s skull, he would have smiled. But Caladrius knew that he did anyway, and shone in full splendour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking throughout the whole thing! As I said, there are more than only a few bits that I wasn’t happy with even at the time of writing, and now that I am older and not a bit wiser, I dislike them even more, but I tried so many times to call this thing done, I hope I will manage this time, haha. And as I also said, I am very fond of the aesthetics I used here, so I wanted to preserve it. I hope somebody out there got some entertainment. I’d love to hear your thoughts, and hope you’re up for whatever (*coughs* better *coughs*) art future me will come up with <3  
> I mean I guess I could redo it all with my current skillset, but I can also simply move on with my life and pour my love and effort into something new if y’know what I mean.


End file.
